Hard-working Rogan keeps on keepin' on

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If there were any more piled on his plate, J.T. Rogan might need a waiver from the FAA.

The University of San Diego's Renaissance man running back is also a graduate student studying real estate, a multiplatform entrepreneur, a world-class baseball heckler and, according to his coach, a mayor in the making.

He is a young man in a hellacious hurry.

“I challenged him to a wrestling match and I'm pretty sure that I can take him because he has no prior wrestling experience,” USD sophomore Matt Jelmini said. “I might have to dump him on his head a couple of times (because) he has that swagger about him.

“But I'm pretty sure he'll take the measures he needs to get ready. I'm pretty sure he'll find a wrestling coach and get coached up 'cause he doesn't take anything lightly. That's for sure. Any competition, any kind of a wager, it's full-go. He's very driven.”

Even at its nonscholarship level, college football is a major commitment, a demanding and debilitating sport played by deeply motivated individuals. Yet J.T. Rogan's schedule is so ambitiously crammed as to suggest his Type A peer group is comprised primarily of slackers.

At 23, Rogan is part-owner of an online book store selling discounted college textbooks
(thebetterbookstore.com
) and, in an unrelated venture, is trying to build a shaved-ice business. In his few spare seconds, Rogan has run a summer football camp and has been exploring ideas for a more comprehensive kind of tutoring program than those currently available.

Today, J.T. Rogan is running the ball. Tomorrow, he might be running a Fortune 500 company.

Make that the day
after
tomorrow.

Rogan returned for a sixth year at USD because his 2008 season was scuttled in the first quarter of his first game by two ligament tears and collateral damage that required microfracture knee surgery. He might have packed it in at that point, recognizing the daunting career path facing nonscholarship running backs rehabbing catastrophic knee injuries.

But J.T. Rogan was not finished with football, not ready to call it a career or to abandon his professional aspirations. Though he has already scored a school-record 47 touchdowns for the Toreros, Rogan remains unswervingly goal-oriented.

“I want to play in the NFL,” he said Friday afternoon at Torero Stadium. “I think I'm good enough. I've got the skill set. I work hard. I don't consider myself a great athlete, but I think I'm a great football player.”

This is a familiar refrain and, for many athletes, a benign delusion. However heady and determined a player might be, those qualities are poor substitutes for footspeed in the NFL or big-time college football.

Rogan compiled big numbers at Coronado High School without enthralling college coaches. At USD, former Toreros coach Jim Harbaugh once classified him as “No. 111” on a 110-man roster.

Skepticism can be a hard pattern to break.

“It would have to be the right situation,” Toreros' third-year coach Ron Caragher said of Rogan's pro prospects. “I've seen guys before get in the right situation who I didn't think necessarily (were) NFL-type players. But they got in the right fit.